Stronger trust, faster recovery: How Bayleys Realty Group stays ahead of cyberthreats with Veeam

Bayleys helps connect people and businesses with the ideal property for them. In this line of work, the company’s reputation is a huge part of its competitive differentiator and must be protected at all costs.

“Our customers trust us to guide them through some of the most important decisions they’ll ever make — finding the perfect place to live or do business,” said Steve Ongley, CIO at Bayleys Realty Group. “We’ve worked hard to earn our reputation as a trusted guardian of sensitive data and major financial transactions. But we know that just one cyberattack or IT crisis could jeopardize all that we’ve built.”

Operating in the highly regulated real estate industry, Bayleys must also comply with a host of directives around data management. The company decided it was time to take better control of their data for its business-critical hybrid environments, particularly Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Entra ID.

“Identity and access management is a constant challenge for us — high agent turnover and a large number of contractors come with the territory in real estate,” said Ongley. “Our goal is to minimize our exposure to cyber threats while making sure we can restore data quickly whenever it’s needed.”

Bayleys opted to extend its Veeam implementation to enable new heights of data resilience, helping the company cultivate and maintain trusted customer relationships. As a long-time user of Veeam Data Platform to protect its on-premises data, Bayleys sought to further integrate Veeam products to align with its data and security strategy over the next several years. The company upgraded to Veeam Data Platform Premium for its on-premises VMs and robust security capabilities across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

Additionally, Bayleys deployed Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365 and Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft Entra ID to augment its capabilities across its SaaS environments.

“We’ve trusted Veeam Data Platform at Bayleys since 2013 — it’s been a cornerstone of our data resilience,” said Ongley. “We gave Datto SaaS Protection a try for Microsoft 365, but it just couldn’t keep up with our needs. It was slow and too rigid for our business. When we looked for a better solution, Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365 stood out as the right fit — and it’s delivered exactly what we needed.”

Bayleys now safeguards over 100 TB of Microsoft 365 data with Veeam solutions and is dramatically reducing data recovery times. In the fast-paced real estate industry, Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft Entra ID integrates seamlessly, enabling the IT team to efficiently protect user accounts. When a user needs to be deleted, their data and configurations remain securely backed up, making it easy to restore everything if they return.

“Email is the backbone of our business, making uninterrupted access to Outlook absolutely essential,” said Ongley. “We often deal with sensitive data which is subject to strict regulatory and compliance requirements, and Veeam helps us meet every retention and deletion requirement. With Veeam, our data is protected, threats are visible, and recovery is effortless.”

To fortify data backup and streamline recovery, Bayleys upgraded their existing Veeam Data Platform utility to Veeam Data Platform Premium. With Veeam Data Platform Premium, Bayleys benefits from enhanced malware protection, proactive threat detection, and detailed compliance reporting.

To lighten the administrative load on the IT team while boosting cyber-resilience, Bayleys decided to take advantage of Veeam Data Cloud Vault, a fully managed, secure cloud storage resource on Microsoft Azure.

“Veeam Data Cloud Vault comes with lots of advanced security features out of the box, such as immutability, encryption, and air-gapped storage,” said Ongley. “The automated monitoring makes our lives so much easier. Best of all, it worked out approximately 20% cheaper than purchasing and maintaining the storage ourselves, and it sped up our recovery even further, so there’s really no question that it’s the right choice.”

Through Veeam solutions, Bayleys introduced self-service data recovery options for users. This is reducing pressure on the support desk and minimizing interruptions to user productivity.

“If someone accidentally deletes a file or needs to restore an earlier version, they no longer have to submit a support ticket and wait,” said Ongley. “Thanks to Veeam, users can quickly recover their own data, freeing up our IT team and letting everyone focus on delivering top-notch real estate services. We’ve saving 624 hours per year on user requests.”

• Cut data recovery times, enabling stellar business continuity
  With the ability to bounce back faster from a disaster, Bayleys is better protecting its hard-won reputation for reliability and trustworthiness.
• Reduced data storage costs by 20%
  By taking advantage of managed cloud storage resources from Veeam Data Cloud Vault, Bayleys is enhancing its bottom line while increasing its cyber-resilience.
• Saves 624 hours a year on resolving user requests, boosting productivity for both the IT team and wider business
  Bayleys is using data resilience from Veeam to empower its users with non-stop access to the productivity and collaboration tools they require, while increasing operational efficiency.